Welcome to Tiny Worlds!
We’re shifting our focus to explore Mexico's eastern coast with twelve-year-old George Perez in the serialized novel: ISLA.
For longer fiction visit Stories, and for flash fiction go to Sketchbook.
(An excerpt from “Shadows and Echoes” a collection of interpreted Mayan legends)
Burros brayed against the strangling ropes, their backs and legs stronger than the stones they dragged.
Men in loose linen shirts whipped and guided, while others—wide-brimmed hats shading thick beards and scornful eyes—stood apart and whispered. History tumbled down whole, crashing into rubble, beneath their boots, beneath the cross they raised above the smoke.“A church will rise from these stones. What remains belongs to flame,” came the friar’s command.
And fire did its work too, flaring as villagers cowered. Dark skin was forced beneath river water by pale hands, baptized anew. They were made to bow before the cross raised on toppled temples, to pray in a tongue not their own to a god not theirs. To acquiesce was to survive. To resist the will of the barbudos, the church, to refuse homage to this new god, was to be whipped—flayed at the crossroads and left for maggots.
But deeper in the jungle the elders gathered. Firelight flickered in their eyes as they whispered, the glow a moment of reverence. Heads bowed, and with no choice remaining but to agree, an accord was struck. The communion of ancients and men—as it had been since the first dawn—would cease for a time. The sacred exchange of prayer and presence, the weaving of offerings and answers, would be broken. Yet in the night sky they saw a sign: a celestial body, its tail streaming away from the sun, drawing the stars in its wake. It was no wandering light but a summons—the last covenant of hope for the future.
As daylight slipped from the leaves, the villagers took up weapons. They circled the invaders’ encampments with measured steps, waiting. On the horizon the comet crept into view, and when it burned bright for all to see, they struck. Blood spilled, skin tore, cries rose into the night—an eruption of violence meant to hold every gaze, to draw every ear, while elsewhere the true work began.
At the windswept coast, under the stars and the sign, boats were quietly pushed into the sea. On them rode the manifestations of the benevolent heavens and the dignitaries of the middleworld. Guided by the sea tortuga, the vessels crossed the waves. Eyes swelled, tears lifted the waters—for this was no triumph but lament. And so, in sorrow, they delivered themselves to their keepers: the Lords of Xibalba.
But the sky kept its secret. Two stars lingered there, winking like mischief, like boys who could not be told to sit still. They had fooled the Lords before, and would wait for the moment to do so again.
In this covenant, the Xibalbans, the spirits of death and disease became guardians for a time. But as the hiding place closed deep in the earth, the Xibalbans deceived the lords of the upperworld, trapping them. With spells and tricks the archive was cloaked beyond reach.
Ixchel, goddess of the island, was bound as intermediary between the human world and the underworld—an office against her true purpose, yet forced upon her by the covenant. She would choose the hands, the heart that turned the key, but not the timing. That belonged to the comet alone, returning in its intervals. All other attempts would be met with her wrath.
At first, the archive was sealed like a chamber beneath stone, its doors hidden by spells. Then, as if the earth itself drew a breath, it sank deeper, past roots and caverns, past rivers that ran unseen, past echoes where no sound returned. The island doubled over with pain, its body shuddering as if to resist, pushing itself farther from the mainland, then fell still.
Darkness closed around it, folding tighter with each layer until even memory could not follow.
And still the earth widened, the jungle spreading over ridges and cenotes, the sea pressing in on every side, until the place of keeping was no more than a fleck within creation’s vast body.
Until the comet’s return, once a century, the archive lies silent, deep, and waiting—sealed since the year 1531.
If you like what you’ve read, please share it.
Have something to say? Just drop a comment below. I’m happy to answer questions
Ohohoho! I see what's happening here!
This interlude reads more like a prelude to the final chapter, J. Great job.